Hey, you know what? I can do holiday-themed stuff once and a while for my hypothetical readers. I’m not some Grinch. So, what do I have on my various watchlists I haven’t seen before? Oh, here’s one. From the writer and director of that Gen X Christmas classic A Christmas Story, Bob Clark. He sure knows how to evoke that holiday feeling while, at the same time, showing just enough overall cynicism to appeal to me since I don’t generally care for treacle. What’s this one called? Black Christmas?
Yeah, it’s the first holiday-themed slasher movie, a major influence on John Carpenter when he made the first Halloween. I make no apologies for opting to watch and review this over my holiday break. I mean, why wouldn’t I?
It’s Christmas time at an unnamed college, probably in Canada judging by half the actors’ accents, where an unseen killer decides to camp out in a sorority house. The girls living there are getting ready to leave for their break and are throwing a Christmas party when they’re interrupted by what they assume is an obscene phone call. It isn’t, as one resident named Claire (Lynne Griffin) finds out the hard way when she gets suffocated to death with a plastic bag while fetching things from her closet as she packs up to go home. And then they never find her body.
Seriously. Her body is never found except by the housemother Mrs. MacHenry (Marian Waldman). However, since most of the women were packing up to go home for the holidays, no one really notices Claire’s absence right away, and when they do, it is only when her father (James Edmond) comes by looking for her. As for the rest of the residents, Clark’s script and story does a decent job of fleshing them out, particularly “final girl” Jess (Olivia Hussey), having boyfriend troubles when she finds herself pregnant and decides she wants an abortion and absolutely does not want to marry the somewhat possessive Peter (Kier Dullea). But there’s also the, shall we say, party girl Barb (Margot Kidder) and the nerdy Phyl (Andrea Martin, who would play Mrs. MacHenry in a 2006 remake), but there’s also a killer.
The killer is never really caught or revealed. Yes, that’s something of a spoiler, but I am writing up a movie that came out the year I was born. I knew that bit when I sat down to watch it. But it is noteworthy how little is known about the killer who may or may not be named “Billy”. He’s never really seen aside from a shadow and one eye, and his voice is hoarse as he mostly speaks in harsh whispers. He’s just there. There’s arguably less of an explanation for this killer than there is for pretty much any other slasher movie killer that I can think of. At the least, they have a full name like Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees. This guy is just Billy…maybe.
As for the rest, there’s a sense of if not horror then at least sadness. Claire’s father hangs around for quite a bit, and he never gets an answer for his daughter. Peter can take the fall when his only real flaw is being a bit of a douche. The cops are crude and sometimes clueless save for John Saxon’s Lt. Fuller, and the movie ends with a scene that includes, among other things, the idea that the morgue isn’t equipped to hold as many dead bodies as it has. It’s not a jolly movie. It’s a depressing horror movie. Fortunately, that does seem to be the tone it was going for.
Grade: B-
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